


Empty Hands Are My Gift

by elrhiarhodan



Series: The Lost and Found [4]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship, Homecoming, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-02-10
Packaged: 2018-03-11 12:43:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3327398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elrhiarhodan/pseuds/elrhiarhodan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The journey to forgiveness isn't easy.</p><p>The conclusion to the story first told in <a href="http://elrhiarhodan.livejournal.com/425385.html">The Lost and Found</a>, <a href="http://elrhiarhodan.livejournal.com/503572.html">You Never Know What the Wind May Blow</a>, and <a href="http://elrhiarhodan.livejournal.com/510294.html">Everything's Far and Nothing is True</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empty Hands Are My Gift

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AngelCaffrey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelCaffrey/gifts).



> The second of two fics written for [**poetry_fiction**](http://poetry-fiction.dreamwidth.org/)'s [Ai Ogawa](http://poetry-fiction.dreamwidth.org/60457.html?style=mine#cutid1) 2015 Challenge, for the prompt: 
> 
>  
> 
> _You, me, these withered flowers,_  
>  _so many hearts tied in a knot,_  
>  _given and taken away._  
> 

Peter dreams of love. Of security. Of comfort. He dreams of the home and the hearts he left behind. He dreams that his world never changed, that he never lost the life he loved, that he didn't give it up for an endless road and nights filled with uncountable stars.

His dreams, at first formless and filled with inchoate longing, become gravid, fraught with meaning. He's in his garden, pruning the roses that climb the trellis in the summer. He snips and cuts, at first careful not to cut away too much, not to damage the plant. But in a moment of carelessness, he's caught on a thorn – it's old and sharp and as long as the first joint on his thumb. It snags his skin and buries itself deep.

He pulls his hand free, and blood – as red as the roses – spills from his palm. He lets the blood run freely and keeps cutting. He's not so careful now, cutting and cutting, lopping off buds, destroying the flowers unbloomed, his pruning becoming butchery. He attacks the trunk, letting the blades dig deep into the greenwood.

In his pain, he murders the roses.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Elizabeth has never been more grateful to Neal than at this moment. Because without Neal, there would be no Mozzie.

And yes, she recognizes that painful conundrum. Because without Neal in their lives, Peter would never have been arrested, he never would have lost his job, he never would have taken to the road to find something that could replace everything he'd lost.

But Neal is in their lives and so is Mozzie, who is a licensed pilot with apparently infinite resources. Somehow, he's got a plane – a small jet, really – waiting to take her to Page, Arizona. A town that's a little more than a dot on a map between the vast Escalante and the deep Grand Canyon.

A town with a hospital where her husband is.

Without Mozzie, she'd have to fly into Denver and endure a seven hour layover and three hour flight into that tiny little town - twelve hours of travel would be a barely endurable hell. Except that Moz is coming to her rescue. 

But if she has to be honest with herself, she almost doesn't want not go to Arizona and sit by her husband's bedside as he recovers from an accident.

Again.

She's still that angry.

Or more accurately, she's angry all over again. When she thought that Peter was safe and happy, she reconciled herself to his absence. It isn't as if she ceases to exist without her husband. But his accident and his inexplicable behavior afterward reignites her pain.

He didn't call her, he didn't call Neal. He called Mozzie. He called someone who he thought would soften the blow. 

The truth is that Peter Burke is a goddamned coward and she doesn't know how she can live with that. And she doesn't know how she can continue to live without her husband.

"You have to go." Neal is implacable. "I'd put you on that plane and fly it myself if it didn't mean getting arrested. Hell, I'd go with you. I should …"

"But you can't. No matter how much you want to." She resents the longing in Neal's voice. His easy understanding of Peter and why he took off like he did. Neal knows all about running.

She walks over to the window and stares out into her backyard. She doesn't need daylight to see how bare and desolate it is. The rose bushes are a tangle of unpruned vines clinging to the trellis. Every fall, Peter carefully cuts back the branches, trimming off the deadwood, the misshapen and overgrown, before wrapping the plant in burlap to protect it from the elements. But Peter wasn't here to do that and Elizabeth couldn't bring herself to do it, either. She has to wonder if the roses will survive the winter. If they'll bloom in the spring, a bright and bloody riot of color, or if the blossoms will wither away from lack of care.

Neal's standing at her back and she can feel his hesitancy. He wants to hold her, to give her comfort, to take some comfort from her, but he's afraid to trespass. She knows what Neal needs and she knows that she can't give it. She's not tactile like Peter, and there will always be a distance between her and Neal. Not that she doesn't care about him, but her priorities are different.

And right now, they feel very screwed up.

"You have to go," Neal repeats, with even more urgency. "You'll never forgive yourself if you don’t, if something … happens."

Intellectually, she agrees with him, but emotionally, all she wants to do is tell Moz that she's not going and if he wants to go retrieve her wayward husband, she'll be most appreciative. And that wouldn't be a lie.

"Elizabeth?"

She makes a decision and turns from the window. "I'm going. I'm going. Let me get some stuff together." She runs upstairs, as if chased by ghosts. She quickly throws a bag of clothes and necessaries together and then rethinks. She's traveling by private plane and she doesn't need to worry about checked baggage. Peter will need things too – he only took what he could fit into the saddlebags – an extra pair of jeans, two shirts, barely a week's worth of underwear. She imagines that everything's little more than worn-out rags by now. 

By the time she finishes, she's got two suitcases full of clothes and feels ridiculous. But Moz doesn't say anything as he carries the bags out to a/the waiting taxi.

Neal has Satchmo on his leash and some of the dog's food in a shopping bag, ready to take back to his apartment. Elizabeth gives him a brief, tight hug. He'll care for Satch while she's gone, but the poor dog looks miserable and that almost persuades Elizabeth to stay home. Satch has never recovered from the six weeks that Peter spent in jail, and Peter's continued absence took its toll on the Lab. He'll behave during his stay with Neal, but she knows he'll mope and barely eat. Like Neal himself.

Just another reason to rage at her husband's utter selfishness.

Elizabeth gets into the cab and looks out the window, Moz a silent presence next to her. She thinks about what her first words to Peter will be. She hopes she'll be able to control herself and not say, "I want a divorce."

She doesn't, not really. But she can't think of four words that will hurt Peter more.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Neal tugs Satchmo up to the apartment. The dog is unhappy and doesn't want to be here, a perfect reflection of his own feelings. The apartment feels like an abandoned greenhouse, stripped of all the living beauty, with just a few desiccated rosebushes left behind, their thorny branches making them impossible to move.

Sometimes, at night, Neal dreams of those rosebushes strangling him.

His heart's still recovering from the bombshell Mozzie dropped. "Peter's hurt." Of course, in the next breath, he qualified it – "But he'll be fine."

Neal finds it impossible to think of Peter as a coward, but he is – he's too scared to call him, to call Elizabeth. So he calls Moz and asks _him_ to deliver the news. What is Peter thinking? That they'll yell at him, that they'll blame him for what happened? That they'll be angry?

He's been so lost since Peter took off but he does understand – better than anyone – the need to run. He also understands how running hurts the people who love you.

But this – this seems almost inconceivable. Peter is the grown-up in their relationship, the one with strong impulse control, the one who tackles problems head on. Peter doesn't avoid the difficult moments. Peter Burke always does what's right.

Neal flops onto the couch. Satchmo sits at his feet and whimpers. 

"I know how you feel, boy." He pats the cushion next to him and Satchmo heaves himself up. Instead of draping himself across Neal's lap, he's sitting on the couch and staring Neal in the eye. Neal cups his hand around Satchmo's jaw and ruffles his ears, and the dog leans into him.

It's so hard not to cry. And in that moment, Neal realizes just how alone he is and he can't hold back anymore. 

He presses his face into Satchmo's soft fur and lets it all go. He cries for everything he lost, for everything he needs but can't have. He cries for all the moments of anger and all the grief he felt for the past four months. He cries for his failure to save Peter's job, for all the times that he let Peter down, for all the moments of mistrust. He cries for his jealousy, his resentment. He cries because there's no one here to hold him and tell him it will be all right.

No one except Satchmo, who licks the tears from his face and nuzzles him with doggy breath.

The storm passes and Neal's calmer, more grounded than he's been in weeks - in the months since Peter's left. And he knows what he has to do. He leaves Satchmo on the couch and retrieves his cell phone. Before he can change his mind, he calls Peter.

This might be as fruitless an effort as it was for the last four months, but in his bones, Neal believes that this time, _this time_ , Peter will answer.

The phone rings and Neal catches his breath as the ringing stops and the call connects.

_"Neal?"_

Just that single syllable instantly heals so many wounds. "Hey there."

_"Hey, back."_

"You sound kind of groggy, did I wake you?"

_"No, not really. They have me on good drugs – I've been kind of drifting in and out of things. I guess you talked to Moz."_

"Yeah – he told us what happened."

_"I'm so sorry, Neal. I'm sorry for everything."_

The words, _it's okay_ are on his lips, but Neal can't utter them. They'd be a lie, and Neal doesn't lie to Peter. So he doesn't say anything.

_"Neal? You still there?"_

"Yeah, I am." He takes a deep breath. "Moz only said you were in a motorcycle accident, and you hurt your shoulder. That you'd need an operation. "

_"Yeah, that's pretty much it. Broke my collarbone, dislocated my shoulder."_

"What happened?" Neal's imagination runs wild. Did Peter swerve to avoid hitting a child? Was he clipped by a car? Did his bike fail?

 _"I was distracted and lost control."_ Peter laughs. _"Kind of ironic, isn't it?"_

Neal's not sure he understands. "Peter?"

 _"I was thinking about how much I missed El, missed you. How I wished you were here with me. The world was so beautiful – I wanted you to see it. I was thinking about you and I didn't see the patch of gravel. I skidded and lost control of my bike. I'm sorry."_

Peter's confession robs Neal of his anger. "Elizabeth's on her way."

 _"She is?"_ Peter sounds almost pathetically hopeful.

"Of course she is. She misses you so much. She's been so worried."

 _"She's angry at me. I hate that. It's all my fault."_ Now Peter sounds like a child, vulnerable, sullen. 

Neal blames the drugs, but he doesn't pull his punches, either. "Yes, she is. And it is your fault."

_"I shouldn't have run away. Running doesn't solve your problems."_

"Now you sound like the Peter Burke I know and love."

_"You still love me?"_

"Of course. Nothing will ever change that, Peter. And I don't blame you for leaving. I can understand why you did."

_"Of course you would."_

"Yeah – I know all about running. But your silence – that's what hurt. That's what's been so damn unfair of you. We love you and we've worried about you. Why wouldn't you talk to us?"

_"Because."_

"Because why?" This conversation is like pulling teeth.

_"Because I was afraid."_

"Afraid of what?" This is the last thing that Neal expected to hear.

_"I was afraid that if I talked to you, talked to El, I'd come home. I was afraid that I'd need you too much. I was afraid you'd hate me."_

"I could never hate you. I love you too much."

The noise at the other end of the line sound suspiciously like a sob. _"Love you, Neal. I've missed you."_

Neal closes his eyes and whispers back, "I love you, Peter." _And I've missed you more than I could ever say._

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"I'm sorry."

"I know, Peter. You haven't stopped apologizing." El looks out the window and the landscape. At fifteen thousand feet up, it's mostly clouds drifting by and the occasional patch of winter-brown land far below.

"But you don't seem to believe me."

"Oh, I do. I know you're sorry. You're sorry for leaving, for refusing to talk to me, for getting hurt. You're sorry for a lot of things." El can't keep the acid out of her tone. "And I'm sorry, too. I'm sorry that you lost your job. That you seem to have lost yourself. I'm sorry you got hurt." She sighs. "And I'm sorry I'm being such a bitch."

Peter laughs, a sound she longed to hear for too many months. "Yes, you have been. But I deserved it."

"Yeah, you have." She turns and looks at Peter. Really looks at him. Dressed and clean-shaven, Peter looks a lot more like her husband than the scruffy wreck that she found wallowing in a hospital bed, slightly stoned from the painkillers, weepy and barely able to string two words together without apologizing.

"Hon, forgive me?" Peter reaches out with his uninjured hand and takes hers. "Please?"

She's about to say _Of course_ , but that's too easy – not on Peter, but on her. It will just push away the painful conversation they need to have. "I love you, Peter. Very much. And I don't want to hold onto my anger, but it's not so simple."

She takes a deep breath and pushes on. "You didn't just hurt me. You hurt Neal, too. Maybe worse."

Peter nods, but El's not sure that he really understands. 

"The new ASAC pulled his corridor to the house the day after you left. Neal had a hard time explaining why he'd spent the night with us. Diana covered for him, but that was it."

"I didn't even think of that."

"No, I didn't think you did." El's anger runs hot again. "He's doing his best to be the man you believe him to be, but he's been dying by inches. You've taken everything from him and he feels like he deserves it."

Peter sucks in his breath like he was stabbed. "I'll make it up to him."

"How?" El has ideas, but she wants to hear what Peter has to say.

"I don't know. It's not like I have a hell of a lot of influence anymore."

"You don't get it, do you?"

"Hon?"

"Neal doesn't need your 'influence' – he needs _you_."

"Me?"

"Did that accident knock your brains loose? Whatever issues the two of you have – and I know they're legion – don't trump the fact that you are Neal's best friend."

"Moz – "

El looks at the door that separates the cabin from the cockpit, and she fully expects that Moz is listening to this conversation. "Moz is his brother – they are the family that each of them never really had. But you're the one he trusts with the really important stuff. Neal's lost so much in just the few weeks before you ran off – Ellen, his father, the security you gave him at work. And then you left. It takes a special kind of coldness to cut yourself off like that."

"I've talked to Neal."

"Finally. And I know all about your drugged out ramblings." She squeezes Peter's hand. "Neal loves you, but you are going to have to earn his forgiveness."

"I know."

She lets go and leans back, more at peace than she's been for a long time. But she has one last thing to say. "Don't you ever pull a stunt like this again, got that? I won't go so easy on you next time."

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Neal worries that he shouldn't be here. That he should just drop Satchmo off and go back to his apartment. Both Moz and Elizabeth texted to let him know that they were on the ground and on route back to Brooklyn. The instructions in El's text are explicit. He's to be at the house when they arrive, no excuses.

Peter sent him a text too. _Can't wait to see you._

But Neal has doubts. Maybe it's better to let Peter come to him when he's ready.

And then it's too late. Satchmo starts barking and running to the door like he's a puppy. Over the dog's clamor, Neal can hear the key in the lock and he's frozen. 

The door opens and Elizabeth's there. She's smiling but Neal can see the strain from the past week, from the past four months. Satchmo is barking and trying to get behind her, trying to get to Peter, who's so fucking beautiful it breaks Neal in ways he never thought possible.

Moz is there, too. He grabs Satch and forces him to sit, but the poor dog is whining and crying and trying to get to Peter. Neal knows just how he feels.

Peter's staring at him and Neal can't do anything except tilt his head towards Satch. Peter's lips tilt upwards in an understanding smile and he goes to give his dog all the affection the poor beast needs. 

Elizabeth stands next to him and watches her husband's reunion with his dog. Peter's sitting on the couch and the dog's all but climbing into his lap. 

Neal asks, "How are you?" There's a lot of meaning in those words.

"I'm okay. Peter and I will be okay – it'll just take some time. How are you?"

Neal shrugs. "Fine, I guess."

"You're not sure?"

Neal smiles. Elizabeth knows him all too well. "Like you said, it'll take some time."

"Yeah." She gives him a brief hug. "Moz and I are going to go pick up some Chinese food. We'll be back in an hour or so." Elizabeth picks up her jacket, snags Moz and they're out of the house before Neal can say anything. Like he's got the makings for pasta Bolognese all ready to go.

Satchmo calms down and abandons Peter for his bed and an enthusiastic chewing session with a rather disgusting rawhide bone. The moment feels weird and awkward.

Peter's the first one to speak. "I'm sorry."

Neal's temper snaps. "I know that. You haven't stopped apologizing every time we've talked. It's old, already."

"Sorry." Peter's smile is wry, he hasn't taken offense at Neal's display of temper.

"Yeah, me too." He sticks his hands in his pockets. "So, how was your trip?"

"Long, lonely – and yes – that was by choice. I don't know if I wouldn't make that choice again, though."

Neal lets out a little laugh. "I know." He looks at Peter, noting the lost weight, the even broader shoulders, the wings of gray at his temples – and despite his arm strapped to his chest – he looks incredible. "Other than that – " Neal gestures to his arm, "it looks like the road agreed with you."

"It was fun, for a time." Then Peter devastates him. "But you and El were with me every mile, every moment. I couldn't outrun your love."

"Then why didn't you come home?"

Peter eases back against the couch and pats the cushion with his free hand. "Come here."

Neal obeys, because with Peter, how could he not? He sits and, with some effort, Peter drapes his right arm around him. For the first time in a long time, Neal feels … safe. 

"I don't know. I missed you, but I needed my freedom, too. Until that moment before the crash. At that instant, I stopped resenting you and Elizabeth. Your love, your worry, your expectations. I wanted you there with me."

Comprehension breaks Neal's heart. "I understand, Peter. I understand all too well." He closes his eyes and at that moment, he's on top of an old bell tower in Praia, he knows that Peter is on the other side of the closed door. He's longing to see Peter and at the same moment, he's resenting his intrusion into paradise.

And of course, Peter reads his mind. "Cape Verde. You hesitated – just for a moment."

"Yeah." He can't forget the instant that Peter's arms wrapped around him, how he hugged him and whispered, "I missed you." It had taken Neal a few heartbeats to reconcile his emotions, to understand his own longing and loneliness.

Neal rests his head against Peter's right shoulder. "This okay?" He needs this contact, but not if it's going to cause Peter any pain.

"Hmm, yeah, but this will be better." Peter hugs him closer and somehow, manages to turn so they're both facing each other. "I've got a lot to make up to you."

"No, you don't – "

"Shh, yes I do. And I can start with this." Peter leans forward, their foreheads touching. "I love you, Neal." 

Neal touches Peter's cheek, relishing the warmth, the strength, the essence of the man he missed so much. "I love you, too. And there's nothing else that matters." He kisses Peter, gently, carefully, like this man's an unknown country, a new universe waiting to be explored.

Peter kisses him back, and what's unknown is now remembered, delicious and familiar. The last of the thorny, withered vines crushing his heart – the ones born of anger and resentment – turn to dust. Peter is home. 

He's safe and he's loved.

And as he's said, nothing else matters.

__

FIN


End file.
